Pe­ter Ray Blood

pe­ter.blood@guardian.co.tt

Earl Brooks Jnr is the win­ner of the first ever Panogra­ma so­lo pan com­pe­ti­tion. The fi­nal, held on In­sta­gram on Sun­day night, fea­tured ten com­peti­tors, six of them qual­i­fy­ing from T&T. Oth­er fi­nal­ists rep­re­sent­ed St Maarten, Bar­ba­dos and An­tigua Bar­bu­da.

Four of T&T’s pan play­ers filled the top four po­si­tion. Brooks Jnr was fol­lowed by De­jean Cain, Kersh Ram­sey and Keishaun Julien, re­spec­tive­ly. Fifth place was filled by Bar­ba­di­an pan­nist Mark Forde.

Per­form­ing in po­si­tion five, Brooks Jnr gave a well round­ed per­for­mance open­ing his act as a ghoul to com­pli­ment his tune of choice, Michael Jack­son’s Thriller. Based in New Jer­sey, USA, Brooks Jnr is the co-arranger of Hat­ters Steel Or­ches­tra, a des­ig­na­tion he shares with his pop­u­lar fa­ther Earl Brooks Snr. He al­so at­tend­ed Berklee Col­lege of Mu­sic.

Per­form­ing David Rud­der’s Ham­mer, Road­block arranger and crack­shot tenor play­er De­jean Cain placed a close sec­ond to Brooks Jnr. Al­so close­ly placed in third po­si­tion was Ram­sey, hav­ing Chick Corea’s Spain as his tune of choice. Fourth-placed Julien per­formed Toni Brax­ton’s Un­break My Heart, while Forde per­formed Mikey’s Fet­ing Fam­i­ly.

Panogra­ma 2020 was pro­duced by Nevin Roach, a pan­man of To­ba­go’s Up­town Fas­ci­na­tors, win­ner of this year’s Na­tion­al Panora­ma (Small) ti­tle. The win­ner of the fi­nal will re­ceive a US$500 first prize and each fi­nal­ist will get a US$100 ap­pear­ance fee.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia af­ter the com­pe­ti­tion, Roach said: “It was a packed house for the fi­nal of this in­au­gur­al Panogra­ma fi­nal. We sur­passed 1,000 view­ers, with ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,800 peo­ple in to­tal.

“Ex­e­cut­ing this was no easy task and, de­spite a num­ber of hic­cups tonight, I am very hap­py to cross the fin­ish line with this year’s Panogra­ma. I am very ex­cit­ed about what can be achieved next year and be­yond with a big­ger and bet­ter Panogra­ma.

“There was non-stop ex­cite­ment in the com­ments from the view­ers as they cre­at­ed a vi­brant and par­tic­i­pa­to­ry at­mos­phere. Each fi­nal­ist showed up on @IN­EV88 live, dressed to im­press, wear­ing out­fits that were rel­e­vant to their re­spec­tive tunes of choice. The mu­sic was noth­ing short of amaz­ing and the judges re­al­ly had a hard time to ar­rive at an even­tu­al win­ner as every fi­nal­ist was a win­ner.

“I must ex­press my pro­found thanks and grat­i­tude to the main pan­el of judges for their hard work through­out the com­pe­ti­tion, as well as the sub­sti­tute ad­ju­di­ca­tors.”

Sun­day’s fi­nal was judged by a pan­el of in­ter­na­tion­al pan play­ers in­clud­ing David Zige Wal­cott (Bar­ba­dos); Ken­neth Joseph (USA); and, Ojay Richards (T&T). Al­ter­nate ad­ju­di­ca­tors were Rod­ney Small (St Vin­cent & The Grenadines); Andy Chich­ester (Grena­da); and, Rikky Rob­ley (T&T).

Mak­ing guest ap­pear­ances on the night were pop­u­lar Bar­ba­di­an Monk/Rid­dim Tribe dancer Nan­di, St Vin­cent & The Grenadines 2019 Rag­ga So­ca Monarch Hance and To­ba­go’s Katzen­jam­mers ace pan­man Jadon.

Roach said: “I could not have done this with­out the sup­port of my judges, fam­i­ly, friends and those die hard pan fans glob­al­ly.” Panogra­ma 2020 was spon­sored by Pan­man Con­sul­tants, E-pan, Stick­land Pan­sticks, #1 Steep­an App GOLD, Run246, Steel­pan Tu­tor, LCA De­signs To­ba­go, Du­vonne Stew­art, at­tor­ney Jay­dene Thomas, US Steel­band As­so­ci­a­tion and Pan Trin­ba­go Inc.